Various forms of storage systems are used today. These forms include direct attached storage, network attached storage (NAS) systems, storage area networks (SANs), and others. Storage systems are commonly used for a variety of purposes, such as providing multiple users with access to shared data, backing up data and others.
A storage system typically includes at least one computing system (may also be referred to as a “server” or “storage server”), which is a processing system configured to store and retrieve data on behalf of one or more host computing systems (“hosts”). The storage system may be presented to a host system for storing information.
Information stored by storage systems today should preferably be secured. It is desirable to secure information closest to an application that is generating the information. It is also preferable to efficiently store the secured data by the storage system, using techniques like de-duplication. Continuous efforts are being made to efficiently secure and store data.